


The Many Deaths of Tomas Ortega

by DachOsmin



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Christianity, Groundhog Day, M/M, Temporary Character Death, This Might As Well Be Book of Job Fanfic, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 23:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17151002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: Marcus wakes with tears in his eyes. He lies motionless beneath the scratchy motel blanket, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling and listening to the quiet rhythm of Tomas’ breathing from the other side of the room.How many times has he failed at the task God has appointed him to? How many times has he seen Tomas cut apart or taken over, hollowed from the inside out?





	The Many Deaths of Tomas Ortega

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearteating](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearteating/gifts).



**1.**

December finds Marcus and Tomas in a small town in the center of the country at the behest of one of the few people left in the church that are still speaking to them.

Marcus scribbles down the details in his notebook as they drive in: a young woman who came back in from the cornfields all wrong. Speaking in tongues, knowing things she shouldn’t, all the boxes are ticked off. This may be the real thing, unlike the last few cases they’ve been called in on. Marcus doesn’t say it out loud, but he almost wishes this is another false alarm they can drive away from- he hates the wide desolation of the prairie, the way it leaves him exposed from every angle. There’s a wrongness to the landscape, from the horizon edged in withered corn husks to the sky the color of pale milk.

Tomas glances at him as they park in the empty lot of the one motel in town. “Are you alright?”

Marcus quashes the sense of dread lurking in the pit of his stomach. “Fine.”

***

The next morning, Marcus wakes in the shadowed hour before dawn. He lies motionless beneath the scratchy motel blanket, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling and listening to the quiet rhythm of Tomas’ breathing from the other side of the room.

Tomas wakes a short while later. They eat and dress and then drive to the house of the woman they’ve come to see, silent by unspoken agreement. Marcus looks out the window of the truck as the pull into the dusty driveway marked with the correct number. The clouds are heavy on the horizon, marbled in tones of slate and gunmetal.

As Marcus walk up the path to the front door, Tomas moves to his side. “Before we begin, I had a thought. I could try, this time. To do it my way.”

Tomas’ cheeks are flushed in the early morning chill, and some base part of Marcus wants nothing more than to reach out and touch, to see if Tomas’ skin is warm beneath his fingers.

He balls his hands into fists instead, tightening his fingers until his knuckles are white with the pain of it.

He sees the second Tomas notices and misinterprets it. “I would be careful,” he says, and Marcus braces himself for the same old fight they’ve had a million times before. “I can do it. It’s better, faster-“

“-more dangerous,” Marcus growls. “You go poking through other peoples’ heads and something is bound to go wrong. The old ways are safe. They work-“

“-but not as well! God gave me this gift; we should use it.”

Oh, that wild-eyed fervor, that keening, yearning need to be used. It’s a sin, but Marcus can’t help but be jealous of God in moments like this. What miracles could he work, if Tomas were to look at him like that?

“No,” he says before Tomas can ask again. “We do it my way,” he says again, softer this time.

Tomas’ mouth is set in an unhappy line, but he nods: a quick, sharp motion, like the chop of a knife. “As you say.” He stalks up the steps of the porch, and Marcus can almost see the frustration pouring off him in waves.

Marcus rings the doorbell and they stand in uncomfortable silence until a middle-aged woman with a tired face answers the door. Her eyes flick to their clerical collars; her face is drawn with a painful combination of grief and fear, like she’s grown used to walking on eggshells.

“Good morning, Mrs. Osby” Marcus says, remembering the names scribbled in his notebook. “We’re here to see Catherine.”

She nods curtly. “Please, come in.”

Marcus and Tomas follow her into the kitchen. It’s a small house, but charming. Marcus reads the history of this woman and her daughter in all the small details and little touches that build up over the course of a lifetime. From the layer of dust on the teacup collection and from the dead houseplants on the ledge above the sink, for instance: a care for order and cleanliness that’s been abandoned in recent times.

Marcus frowns and looks at Mrs. Osby, really looks. He sees her pain and lets himself focus on it. “Tell us about your daughter,” he says gently.

Mrs. Osby offers them a pained smile and leans back, bracing her hands against the sink for support. “Well, she’s been… odd lately. Ever since her nineteenth birthday.”

“Odd,” Tomas says. “Odd how?”

Marcus watches Tomas out of the corner of his eye as he teases out the story of her daughter. Every time they meet a victim of possession, Marcus is struck by the intensity of Tomas’ devotion: Tomas has just met this woman and has never seen her daughter, and already he loves them, would give anything for them.

It’s terrible of him, to see Tomas give so freely with his love and feel, in place of awe, this ache deep and raw within his chest.

“May we see Catherine?” he asks. He needs to focus on the job.

Mrs. Osby hesitates for a second, but then nods and mutely gestures for them to follow her upstairs.

They follow her down a long and narrow hallway. She pauses in front of a room with faded unicorn stickers on the door, and then she’s pushing the door open.

And then things go, quite literally, to hell.

On one hand, the girl is in fact possessed so at least they hadn’t wasted their time with the drive. But on the other hand the demon has had time to husband its strength: by now it’s well entrenched in its host, and bloody angry to boot.

Marcus steps into the room gingerly, which resembles not so much a girl’s bedroom as a circus of the damned.

Items levitate and spin around the edges of the room, the girl is shrieking on her bed, and the sense of shear wrongness that hangs in the air hits Marcus in the chest like a physical blow.

Marcus reaches for his bible with one hand, his crucifix with the other. What else can he do?

***

Two hours into the exorcism, Tomas turns to him with a muttered oath. “Marcus, this isn’t working.“

The situation is getting worse by the minute. The room is edging closer and closer into chaos, Marcus can feel control slipping away from him, and there’s at least one soul in the balance. “Stay the course,” he snaps.

On the far wall of the bedroom, a large vanity mirror shatters, shards of glass tumbling to the floor.

Tomas swears under his breath and grabs Marcus by the arm. He’s wide eyed and flushed. “Marcus, I can stop this. I know I can-“

“No,” Marcus snarls, and turns to spit out another prayer.

“Marcus-“

“No!”

The shards of the mirror rise up, dancing in the flicker of the flickering lamps. They swarm through the air; the play of light and dark over their jagged facets portending a dark and unholy beauty.

Marcus screams out a prayer in defiance, fighting to be heard over the shriek of the wind and the shiver of glass. “Is this all?” he bellows, brandishing the cross before him. “Is this all you can do?”

He thinks, in that moment, that they are winning. He can feel his strength match with the fury of the demon’s and begin to best it. Tomas’ chanted prayers are steady in his ear. The wind quiets. The lights die down.

He thinks they are on the cusp of victory, and perhaps that is why it happens; perhaps he is being punished for that terrible sin: pride.

The demon smiles up at him, and it’s then that he suddenly realizes that the shards of the mirror are nowhere to be seen. He does not turn at first, because to turn would be to see, and he knows what he will see if he turns-

Behind him, a wet gurgle.

Frost settles in his chest.

The leaden thump of a body hitting the floor is deafening in the sudden silence.

Marcus spins around to see Tomas on the floor, eyes wide, neck bright and glittering with blood and shards of broken mirror lodged beneath the skin. He’s swallowing convulsively as Marcus moves to cradle his head in his hands, but there’s no air to be had, and he’s hiccupping bright red bubbles and bits of flesh as he convulses, terrified and uncomprehending and so very, very young.

Marcus’ fingers shred into strips as he tries to pull out the glass shards, until he can’t tell where his blood ends and Tomas’ begins. “Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me-“

But Tomas’ eyes are falling shut and his limbs are falling into stillness, and there is nothing Marcus can do.

The silence spreads like water poured from a cup, and Marcus thinks he might drown in it.

He can hear the demon moving, he can see the leftover shards of the mirror in the corner of his eye, floating in the air behind him-

-But all he can pay attention to is the fall of Tomas’ lashes on his deathly pale cheek.

He braces himself as he hears it: the whistle of glass shearing through air.

And it is a mortal sin beyond all others, but he doesn’t try to avoid his death, because then he would have to let go of Tomas’ hands.

 

**2.**

It’s the shadowed hour before dawn, and Marcus wakes from a half-remembered dream. He lies motionless beneath the scratchy motel blanket, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling and listening to the quiet rhythm of Tomas’ breathing from the other side of the room.

He'd had a dream. It had been vivid, vital, important. Each time he grasps for it it slips away, and he’s left with nothing but the most fleeting of images. Clouds on the horizon. The wrinkled forms of dead houseplants. The sound of tinkling glass.

He gives up and pushes himself out of bed, eating and dressing in silence. They have work to do today.

They park at the edge of Mrs. Osby’s driveway, and Marcus frowns at the sky. As they walk towards the house, Marcus can’t help but feel like he’s forgotten something.

Whatever it is, it’s there when he shuts his eyes, and there again in the sudden burst of light between his eyelashes when he opens them. Liminal: there and gone again. He blinks again, and all there is to see is Tomas watching him with concern writ in the tightness of his frown.

“Are you alright?” Tomas asks.

Marcus forces a smile he doesn’t quite feel. “Fine.”

Things devolve from there.

Marcus is on autopilot through the introduction to the young girl’s mother, her tearful explanations and stuttered questions. He can’t seem to focus, he feels a million miles away. He feels like he’s been here before; he feels like he’s watching a movie of someone else’s life and suppresses the urge to hit the fast forward button.

Tomas plays the part of the caring priest for the both of them and plays it well: he murmurs soft assurances and holds the woman’s hands in his, but from the way he glances back at Marcus every few seconds Marcus knows he’s noticed Marcus is acting oddly.

The girl’s room is a horror show. Items levitate and spin around the edges of the room, the girl is shrieking on her bed, and the sense of shear wrongness that hangs in the air hits Marcus in the chest like a physical blow.

Out of the corner of his eye he thinks he sees blood, but it’s gone when he turns.

The blood shifts and rearranges itself: now on the dresser, now in the runnels of the baseboard.

He steps to avoid it, stumbles.

Tomas grips him by the shoulder to steady him. “Marcus?”

He swallows. Could this be a vision? A sign?

“You know what,” he says, confusion rendering his voice curt. “I’ve changed my mind. We do the exorcism your way this time.”

Tomas hesitates for a second, but then he’s nodding eagerly, like he was hoping in his heart of hearts that Marcus would say just that.

He closes his eyes, head tilting back in rapturous concentration. His hands fall to his sides, his mouth falls open, his brows furrow, then relax.

Marcus can’t help but stare at him- he so rarely gets to just look at Tomas, to watch him utterly in his element- and so he sees it, the moment the demon takes him.

A shiver runs through Tomas’ body, and the hairs on Marcus’ spine stand on end.

“Tomas,” he says.

No reply.

“Tomas!” he snaps, and reaches out to grab him by the shoulder-

Tomas turns to look at him, and everything about him is wrong. From the loose way he holds his limbs to the languid smile on his lips. And his eyes flutter open, and those eyes- black, so inky black that Marcus could drown in them.

“Marcus,” the demon purrs, and oh, to hear his name like that, from Tomas’ lips-

He begins to mumble the words of a prayer but they’re just words, and they crumble in the space between him and Tomas.

“He sees, you know,” the demon says. “The way you look at him.”

Marcus fumbles for his crucifix, pressing it between them like a weapon.

The demon bats it away like it’s nothing. A symbol is only as powerful as the will behind it, and Marcus knows that even though Tomas is filled to the brim with demon, he could never truly wish for Tomas to leave him.

“You think he doesn’t know?” the demon asks. “You think he doesn’t see the way your eyes drag over him? He wonders what it would be like. He sees how magnificent you are- he wonders what it would be like to give into that, to let you take him-“

Marcus can’t seem to speak, can’t seem to move as the demon stalks forward in its borrowed body. It’s reaching up to him and then it’s pulling Marcus in and fitting their lips together with a soft moan.

This is wrong, everything about this is wrong-

Too late he tries to get away, but Tomas’ hands are on his throat, warm and utterly implacable.

His vision blurs into black spots and hazy greyness; his lungs burn and his throat aches. The thing that looks like Tomas kisses him through it all, until Marcus finally slips under and everything falls away.

 

**3.**

It’s the shadowed hour before dawn, and Marcus wakes up with his heart pounding and his body bathed in sweat. He lies motionless beneath the scratchy motel blanket as his body calms down, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling and listening to the quiet rhythm of Tomas’ breathing from the other side of the room.

He had a dream. A vivid, perfectly formed dream, perhaps even a vision sent from god: Tomas insisting on his own way of doing the exorcism. Tomas standing over him, eyes black and hands tight around his throat. Tomas lying beneath him, covered in blood. The images don’t make sense. They don’t need to. He’s seen enough.

He yanks the covers off his bed and stumbles to his feet, fumbling blindly for his bag.

Tomas sits up in his own bed, confusion in his bleary eyes. “Marcus?”

“We’re leaving,” Marcus bites out.

Tomas’ eyes widen and he scrambles to get out of bed. “But- Marcus, we can’t just-“

Marcus stalks out into the parking lot without looking back. He yanks the bonnet of the truck open and flings his bag inside, slamming the door shut harder than necessary. He turns to see Tomas staring at him, half-dressed and mussed from sleep but very much awake.

“Marcus there’s a job to do, we can’t just _leave-“_

“No jobs today,” Marcus thunders, fully aware he sounds like a lunatic. “No bloody exorcisms, and certainly no lecherous demons that you can’t handle.”

And hell, he can tell by the widening of Tomas’ eyes that now he’s done it, now he’s pulled the tiger’s tail.

Tomas pulls himself up to his full height as well as he can manage, crowned with righteous fury. His cheeks are flushed with anger and he’s a terrible and beautiful sight, like a crusader of old. “You _dare-“_

“Yeah, I do.” Marcus bares his teeth and shoves his way into Tomas’ personal pace, until they stand a breath apart. “I do dare, and you’re going to handle it, or I’m leaving you on the side of the road and you can find your own bloody way back to civilization.”

They stand like that for a second, the only sound the ragged rhythm of their breaths, and Marcus is seized with the fear that he’s pushed too far, that Tomas is about to call his bluff and walk down the street and out of Marcus’ life.

But then Tomas’s nostrils flare and he whips around, yanking open the passenger door and flinging himself into the seat with ill grace. He seethes in bitter silence as Marcus gets in beside him and starts the engine.

The silence between them is a live wire, and Marcus knows if he so much as comments on the weather Tomas will be laying into him again.

It’s not until they make it past the county line that Marcus lets himself truly relax. He takes a deep breath eases his fingers out of their death grip on the wheel, and as he follows the signs for the interstate, he lets himself believe that things are really, actually, going to be okay.

And of course, that’s when the eighteen-wheeler veers out of oncoming traffic and directly into the path of the truck, and everything goes white.

 

**4.**

It’s the shadowed hour before dawn, and Marcus wakes up knowing something is wrong. He lies motionless beneath the scratchy motel blanket, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling and listening to the quiet rhythm of Tomas’ breathing from the other side of the room.

He blinks, and suddenly vivid streaks of blood are coating everything he sees. He jerks from the bed with a gasp, only to fall back in confusion when the blood disappears with his next breath. He lies back against his pillow, and he thinks.

Something happened yesterday. But no, yesterday they drove into town, ate dinner, and checked into the hotel without incident. Nothing happened.

Something happened. Tomas died in a hail of glass shards. Marcus died with Tomas’ hands around his throat. They both died in the cab of the truck.

Nothing happened.

He holds the images in his mind like fragile things, poking at them gently lest they fall away again. He thinks he can feel the shape of them, of what’s been going on.

He’s going to be very careful this time. He’s going to try harder this time. He’s going to be better. He’s going to give this his all, and the outcome will be different.

It will be.

***

It isn’t.

 

**5.**

It’s the shadowed hour before dawn, and Marcus wakes with tears in his eyes. He lies motionless beneath the scratchy motel blanket, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling and listening to the quiet rhythm of Tomas’ breathing from the other side of the room.

There are memories of a dream in his head. But the memories are wrong; they’re brighter than they should be, more real.

He doesn’t get out of bed. He lies in place, and he remembers.

How many times has he failed at the task God has appointed him to? How many times has he died on the floor of Catherine Osby’s bedroom? How many times has he seen Tomas cut apart or taken over, hollowed from the inside out? The images come in a trickle, then a flood, and all he can do is feel the multiplicative griefs of a thousand failures flow over him, all at once.

The sun rises outside the motel, filtering through the dingy gingham curtain. It’s well past the hour when he was supposed to get up. The hour he got up every other day he’s lived this day.

Maybe if he stays in bed it won’t happen. But he tried that once; the motel burned down. A gas leak, probably.

Finally, he hears the easing of springs from the other bed, and the soft padding of footsteps crossing the room.

“Marcus?”

Marcus doesn’t reply. What good would it do?

“Marcus.”

A hand on his shoulder, and he finds himself rolling onto his back, looking up into the concerned eyes of Tomas. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Then why-“

“Or no. I can’t keep track anymore.”

Tomas doesn’t say anything, but Marcus can guess at the question he’s trying to figure out how to phrase.

“I’m going to die today. Or you’re going to die, or we’re both going to die. It’s hard to keep track.”

That gets a look of alarm. “What-“

Marcus rolls back onto his side. “I’ve lived this day so many times, and I’ve never seen the end of it. I never save the girl. I never save you. I fail and I fail and I fail, every single time.”

Tomas is silent for a long time. “Could this be a trick of a demon?” he says at last. “They can be crafty, show you things that aren’t real-“

“It’s not,” Marcus bites out. He knows what demonic possession looks like; he’s seen it on Tomas’ face a dozen times, a hundred times. “If anything, it’s a message from God.”

“Ah,” Tomas says. He sits in silence for another moment. “So why aren’t you getting up?”

“Because- because there’s no point to this!”

“Why?”

“Because I fail! I always fail!”

“Why do you think you’ve failed?”

“You weren’t listening? I never save the girl! I never save you! No matter how many times I try.”

But Tomas is tilting his head and looking down at him with that wonderful, terrible compassion. The kind he’s had for Catherine and her mother every day, from a font that never seems to run dry. “Marcus, isn’t that what we do? You taught me: this fight is bigger than us. We won’t see the end of it; it will go on long after we’re gone. But we fight anyway.”

He’s right and Marcus hates that he’s right. This day he’s lived so many times has left him hollowed out and empty. How many times can he watch Tomas die in his arms? “It’s a terrible thing,” he croaks.

Tomas reaches out to touch his cheek, hesitant. The pads of his fingers are warm against Marcus’ skin. “Yes,” he agrees. “Terrible, and wonderful too.”

Marcus lets himself lean into Tomas’ touch. How many times can he watch Tomas die in his arms? At least once more, if there’s a chance this time Tomas will live.

They leave the motel and walk to the car, and Marcus thinks that if he’s to die today then so be it: there’s no way he’d rather go than this.

Hand in hand, they enter the house of Catherine Osby, together.

 

**6.**

It’s the shadowed hour before dawn, and Marcus wakes to the sound of a storm rolling in off the prairie. He listens for a while to the patter of raindrops on the rooftop. And then his eyes close, and he falls back asleep.

 


End file.
